OBJETIVO: Verificar se ocorrem modificações nos parâmetros vocais perceptivos, acústicos e no Voice Onset Time das consoantes plosivas em adultos implantados com deficiência auditiva pré-lingual, após reabilitação vocal específica. MÉTODO: Participaram 20 adultos alfabetizados com deficiência auditiva sensorioneural de severa a profunda bilateral pré-lingual implantados tardiamente, com uso fluente de linguagem oral para a comunicação, com idades entre 17 e 48 anos. Todos apresentavam exame laringológico normal e limiares auditivos com implante coclear melhores que 40dBHL. Os indivíduos foram aleatoriamente distribuídos em dois grupos: Grupo 1 (estudo) e Grupo 2 (controle), com 10 pacientes em cada um deles, sendo 5 pacientes do gênero masculino e 5 do gênero feminino, semelhantes na média de idade e no tempo de privação auditiva anterior ao implante coclear. Os pacientes do Grupo 1 foram submetidos a um protocolo de terapia de voz e fala composto por 12 sessões individuais, com a mesma terapeuta, utilizando exercícios vocais e treinamento da produção de consoantes e do Voice Onset Time (VOT) com auxílio da espectrografia. O Grupo 2 realizou apenas gravações de voz. Foram realizadas gravações da voz antes e após a participação no protocolo de terapia para o Grupo 1, e após o mesmo período, 3 meses depois, sem qualquer intervenção, para o Grupo 2. Para as sessões de gravações da voz, utilizamos leitura das frases do protocolo CAPE-V, emissão da vogal sustentada /a/ e leitura de frases veículo com as seis plosivas do português brasileiro em posição inicial da palavra. Foi realizada avaliação perceptivo-auditiva das vozes por três juízes, e análise acústica por meio do programa PRAAT. RESULTADOS: Observou-se redução estatisticamente significante no grau geral da voz, na instabilidade vocal e no grau de alteração da ressonância após a reabilitação vocal no Grupo 1. Foi possível comprovar estatisticamente que os indivíduos do sexo feminino do Grupo 1 se diferenciaram do Grupo 2 nos valores da variabilidade da frequência fundamental (F0). Em relação à análise do VOT, o Grupo 1 apresentou modificação estatisticamente significante na melhora da produção das consoantes sonoras [b] e [d]. O Grupo 2 não apresentou mudanças significantes em quaisquer dos parâmetros analisados. CONCLUSÃO: Após a intervenção vocal, os implantados adultos submetidos à reabilitação vocal apresentaram modificações nos parâmetros perceptivo-auditivos e acústicos, com redução do grau geral da voz, da instabilidade vocal, do grau da alteração da ressonância, dos valores da variabilidade da F0 na emissão da vogal sustentada e do VOT das consoantes sonoras [b] e [d] / OBJECTIVE: To verify changes in the perceptual and acoustic vocal parameters and in the Voice Onset Time of plosive consonants in pre-lingual deaf adults with cochlear implants, after specific vocal rehabilitation. METHODS: 20 literate adults with bilateral severe to profound pre-lingual sensorineural hearing loss participated in the study; individuals were implanted late and were fluent users of oral language. Ages ranged from 17 to 48 years. All individuals presented normal results in laryngoscopy, and hearing thresholds with the cochlear implant better than 40dBHL. Individuals were randomly distributed in two groups: Group 1 (study) and Group 2 (control) both with ten patients, five men and five women, matching mean age and hearing deprivation time before the cochlear implantation. Patients from Group 1 underwent a protocol of vocal and speech therapy including 12 individual sessions with the same therapist, comprising vocal exercises and plosive consonants production training, and the Voice Onset Time (VOT) with the support of the acoustic spectrogram. Group 2 only underwent vocal recordings. The vocal recordings occurred before and after the participation in the therapy protocol for Group 1 and after the same period, three months later without any intervention, for Group 2. The recording sessions used the CAPE-V protocol sentence reading, emission of sustained vowel /a/ and reading of carrier phrases with the six plosive consonants of the Brazilian Portuguese language in the initial position of the word. Auditory-perceptual evaluation of voices was performed by three judges and the acoustical analysis used the PRATT program. RESULTS: A statistically significant reduction in the overall vocal degree, in the vocal instability and in the degree of resonance change was observed after vocal rehabilitation in Group 1. It was possible to statistically evidence that female individuals from Group 1 differed from the ones in Group 2 regarding the modification of variability values of fundamental frequency (F0). Concerning the VOT analysis, Group 1 presented statistically significant improvement in the production of consonants [b] and [d]. Group 2 did not present significant changes in any of the analyzed parameters. CONCLUSIONS: The implanted adults submitted to vocal rehabilitation presented changes in the auditory-perceptual and acoustic parameters, with reduction of the overall vocal degree, vocal instability, degree of resonance change, in variability values of F0 in the emission of sustained vowel and in VOT of consonants [b] and [d] after vocal intervention

O presente trabalho foi realizado em dois estudos. O primeiro deles (Estudo 1) teve como objetivo descrever e comparar as características acústicas das líquidas /l/; /4/ e /”do português brasileiro enquanto o segundo (Estudo 2), procurou descrever e comparar a percepção auditiva das líquidas apresentadas a juízes. Para isto, foi analisada acusticamente a produção das líquidas /l/; /4/ e /”realizada por 10 crianças sem alterações de fala e linguagem (GC), com idade compreendida entre 5:11 e 9:0 anos, e 10 com transtorno fonológico (GTF) e idade entre 5:0 e 12:0 anos. Após a avaliação fonológica, as crianças dos dois grupos foram solicitadas a repetir três vezes as sílabas /Na, Ni, Nu/; /4a, 4i, 4u/ e /”a, ”i, ”u/ e as palavras /se\'boNa/, /\'Nãma/, /\'mi”W, /<aka\'4\'/, /<i\'4afa/, /pa\'”asu/. A amostra de fala foi coletada e armazenada no CSL-Computarized Speech Laboratory 4300B/4500. Os parâmetros acústicos selecionados para a análise acústica do Estudo 1 foram: valores das freqüências formantes F1, F2 e F3, duração do som-alvo, duração da sílaba contendo o som-alvo, duração do som anterior (quando presente) e do subseqüente, duração da porção estável do som-alvo, valores da transição do som-alvo para a vogal subseqüente (/l/) e duração da transição do som-alvo para a vogal subseqüente (/l/), transição do som-alvo para o som inserido (/4/ e /”) e do sominserido para a vogal subseqüente (/4/ e /”), duração da transição do som-alvo para o som inserido (/4/ e /”), slope (medida de velocidade de movimentação dos articuladores). Em seguida à análise dos dados, uma amostra de fala foi selecionada pela pesquisadora para o Estudo 2. Esta amostra foi apresentada a dois grupos de juízes da FMUSP, um composto por alunos do curso de graduação e outro por alunos de pós-graduação, todos fonoaudiólogos, que deveriam realizar um julgamento perceptivo-auditivo das sílabas e palavras. Os dados foram analisados estatisticamente por meio dos testes ANOVA, Teste-t e qui-quadrado (nível de significância adotado de 5%). Em relação às medidas acústicas, os resultados indicaram que as crianças do GC, de modo geral, foram capazes de produzir as sílabas e palavras solicitadas de maneira mais estável e precisa do que as crianças do GTF. A análise do slope mostrou que o GC apresentou movimentos mais rápidos e precisos, do ponto de vista articulatório, quando comparado ao GTF. Há evidencias que o GC se utilizou dos parâmetros acústicos de duração e das freqüências formantes para diferenciar uma líquida da outra, enquanto o GTF utilizou predominantemente a duração como diferenciador. Observando o comportamento acústico-articulatório do GC verificou-se que a língua apresenta uma maior movimentação ascendente e descendente durante a produção do /N/ e uma mudança ântero-posterior mais acentuada na produção do /4/. Em relação à análise perceptiva foi possível notar que, apesar do maior número de erros ter sido observado no grupo de juízes da pós-graduação, ambos tiveram mais dificuldade de julgar perceptivamente as sílabas e palavras com a líquida /4/. / The present research was divided in two different studies. The purpose of the first one (Study 1) was to describe and to compare the acoustic characteristics of the three Brazilian Portuguese liquid sounds /N/; /4/ and/”/. The aim of the second study (Study 2) was to describe and to compare the auditory perception of these liquids when presented to judges. To accomplish these two purposes, acoustic analyses were carried out of the production of /N/; /4/ and /”/ by 10 children without phonological disorders aged from 5:11 to 9:0 years old (CG) and 10 children with phonological disorders (PDG) aged between 5:0 and 12:0 years old. After a complete phonological evaluation the children in of both groups were asked to repeat three times the syllables /Na, Ni, Nu/; /4a, 4i, 4u/ e /”a, ”i, ”u/ and the words /se\'boNa/-onion, /\'Nãma/-mud, /\'mi”W-corn, /<aka\'4\'/-alligator, /<i\'4afa/-giraffe, /pa\'”asu/-clown. The samples were collected and stored in the CSL-Computerized Speech Laboratory 4300B/4500. The acoustic parameters selected to be analyzed for Study 1 were: formant frequencies F1, F2 and F3, duration of the target sound, duration of the syllable containing the liquid target sound, duration of the precedent (when present) and subsequent sound to the liquid, duration of the steady state from the target sound, transition of the target sound to the subsequent vowel (for /l/) and duration of transition of the target sound to the subsequent vowel (for /l/), transition of the target sound to the inserted sound (for /4/ e /”) and from the target sound to the subsequent vowel (for /4/ e /”), duration of the transition from the target sound to the inserted sound (for /4/ e /”) and slope analysis (measurement of rate of formantfrequency change ). After data analysis the researcher selected a speech sample for Study 2. The sample was presented to two groups of judges from FMUSP. One group was composed of graduate students and the other one by post-graduate students, all speech-pathologists. All of them were requested to perceptually judge syllables and words. Data were statistically analyzed using ANOVA, T test and chisquare (significance level adopted 5%). In general terms, results of Study 1 indicated that CG produced solicited syllables and words with more stability and precision than PDG. From the articulatory point of view, slope analysis showed that CG had steeper formant-frequency changes, and therefore presumably faster and more precise movements than PDG. Some evidence shows that CG used duration and formant frequencies to differentiate their liquid productions while PDG used duration prior to other acoustic parameters. Observing acoustic-articulatory parameters it was observed that CG presented ample ascendant and descendent movements during /N/ production while anterior and posterior movements were more visible during /4/ production. Study 2 results indicated that, even though the number of errors was greater for the post-graduation group of judges than for the graduate group, both of them presented more difficulty in perceptually judging the sound /4/ presented in syllables and words.

Made available in DSpace on 2017-07-10T18:55:46Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 ROSEMEIRI.pdf: 3575198 bytes, checksum: 0dc90e5d540109fb8dbb81505cb9f197 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2007-02-23 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / The present research has for objective to analyze the culture punk contemporary from the speech production of punks of the city of Curitiba, adopting the method of research and exposition of Mikhail Bakhtin. In this approach it is become do a critical richnes of the studies about youth in Brazil and the movement punk. One considers of these bibliographical productions its methods, concepts and mediating results of our reflections that privilege the relations between language and society, between language and culture in its importance as historical process, social and interactive that integrates the relation I-others in the dialogue restored between speeches. / A presente pesquisa tem por objetivo analisar a cultura punk contemporânea a partir da produção discursiva de punks da cidade de Curitiba, adotando o método de pesquisa e de exposição de Mikhail Bakhtin. Nessa abordagem realiza-se a fortuna crítica dos estudos sobre juventude no Brasil e sobre o movimento punk. Considerase dessas produções bibliográficas seus métodos, conceitos e resultados mediadores de nossas reflexões que privilegiam as relações entre linguagem e sociedade, entre linguagem e cultura na sua importância como processo histórico, social e interativo que integra a relação eu-outros no dialogismo instaurado entre discursos.

INTRODUÇÃO: Visando compreender quais são os possíveis efeitos do uso de dispositivos de alteração de feedback auditivo (AFA) sobre a fala, principalmente no que diz respeito às habilidades neuromotoras e à naturalidade de fala, o objetivo deste estudo foi verificar, por meio da análise acústica, as possíveis variações nas habilidades motoras da fala em adultos com gagueira e fluentes com o uso do SpeechEasy. MÉTODOS: Os participantes deste estudo foram 20 adultos, 10 com gagueira (9 do sexo masculino e 1 do sexo feminino - idade média de 30,9 anos) e 10 controles fluentes (9 do sexo masculino e 1 do sexo feminino - idade média de 25,2 anos). O estudo comparou o desempenho dos participantes em quatro tarefas: fala espontânea, diadococinesia alternada, diadococinesia sequencial e emissão de frase alvo, em duas situações distintas: uma sem o dispositivo e uma com o dispositivo. Os aspectos analisados acusticamente foram: (1) para as tarefas de diadococinesia: duração das sílabas, período médio entre as sílabas, pico de intensidade e taxa de diadococinesia, (2) para a tarefa de emissão da frase alvo: tempo de reação, duração do VOT, duração total da emissão, frequência fundamental e intensidade, em cada uma das condições de teste. RESULTADOS: Com relação à comparação entre grupos, apenas a tarefa de fala espontânea apresentou diferença significativa (p < 0,001). Com relação à comparação intragrupo do desempenho entre as duas condições de teste, novamente foram observadas diferenças significativas somente na tarefa de fala espontânea. Nesta tarefa, o uso do dispositivo de AFA resultou em melhora significativa da fluência de fala, medida pela porcentagem de sílabas gaguejadas (p=0,014), para o grupo com gagueira. Por outro lado, para o grupo de fluentes, o dispositivo produziu o efeito oposto (ou seja, aumento significativo - p=0,046 - na frequência de rupturas gagas com o uso do dispositivo). A análise estatística dos aspectos acústicos das tarefas de diadococinesia e emissão da frase alvo não indicou diferença significativa nas comparações intra e intergrupos. CONCLUSÕES: Os resultados indicaram que, para o grupo de adultos com gagueira, o uso de dispositivo SpeechEasy ocasionou em melhora na fluência, sem interferir na naturalidade de fala / INTRODUCTION: In order to understand the possible effects of the use of altered auditory feedback (AAF) devices on speech, especially with regard to neuromotor skills and speech naturalness, the purpose of this study was to use acoustic analysis to investigate possible changes on speech motor skills with the use of SpeechEasy, in adults who stutter and fluents. METHODS: Participants for this study were 20 adults, 10 with stuttering (9 males and 1 female - mean age 30.9 years) and 10 fluent controls (9 males and 1 female - mean age 25.2 years). The study compared the performance of participants in four tasks: spontaneous speech, alternate motion diadochokinesis, sequential motion diadochokinesis and utterance of a target sentence, in two different situations: one without and one with the device. The aspects acoustically analyzed were: (1) for diadochokinesis tasks: syllable duration, syllable periods, peak intensity and diadochokinesis rate, (2) for target sentence task: reaction time, VOT duration, total duration, fundamental frequency and intensity, in each of the tested conditions. RESULTS: Between group comparisons indicated significant differences only when considering the spontaneous speech testing condition (p < 0.001). For the group of stutterers, within group comparisons (i.e. without versus with device) also indicated significant differences only for the spontaneous speech task. In this task, the use of AAF device resulted in a significant improvement of speech fluency, as measured by the percentage of stuttered syllables (p=0.014). On the other hand, for the control group, the device produced the opposite effect (i.e. a significant increase in the percentage of stuttered syllables - p=0.046). Statistical analysis of the acoustic aspects of both diadochokinesis and the target sentence indicated no significant difference for between and within group comparisions. CONCLUSIONS: Our results indicated that for the group of stutterers the use of SpeechEasy device caused an improvement in speech fluency without interfering in speech naturalness

<div><b>Purpose:</b> Previous studies have shown that children with SSD speaking a language other than English produce different types of speech errors, although there is a paucity of information investigating these differences in speech sound production (e.g., Core & Scarpelli, 2015; Fabiano-Smith & Goldstein, 2010b; Fabiano-Smith & Hoffman, 2018). This study investigates the types of speech errors produced by bilingual Spanish-English and monolingual English-speaking children matched on age, receptive vocabulary, and articulation accuracy in single words.</div><div><br></div><div><b>Methods: </b>Twelve bilingual English-Spanish speaking children, ages 4;0 to 6;11, were matched to twelve monolingual English-Speaking children. Participants completed standardized and non-standardized tests of speech and language, and performance between groups and assessment measures were compared. Consonant sound productions were categorized as correct, substitution errors, omission errors, or distortion errors.</div><div><br></div><div><b>Results: </b>Bilingual Spanish-English children were significantly more likely than monolingual English children to produce omission errors, while monolingual English children were more likely to produce distortion errors. Both groups produced similar proportions of substitution errors. Bilingual children produced similar proportions of each error type in both of their languages.</div><div><br></div><div><b>Conclusion: </b>SLPs should not rely on English normative data to diagnose SSDs in monolingual and bilingual Spanish-speaking children, as they demonstrate different errors patterns from monolingual English-speakers.</div>

No description available.

<p dir="ltr">Bilingualism is defined as the regular use of two or more languages by a single speaker in their everyday lives (Grosjean, 2008). Prior research at the phonetic level has shown that bilinguals often experience a degree of cross-linguistic interference, in which the productions of one language shift in the direction of the opposite language. Evidence for cross-linguistic interference is most notable in contexts where bilinguals activate both of their languages, as in cases of code-switching. Yet prior research has produced somewhat mixed results, with a subset of studies failing to find evidence of cross-linguistic interference. While some authors have suggested that such mixed results may be the result of varying levels of phonetic awareness (i.e., knowledge about the phonetic norms of each language), the potential contribution of this variable has yet to be systematically explored. Utilizing code-switching as a tool, the current study examined the role of phonetic awareness in modulating bilingual cross-linguistic phonetic interaction. A total of 20 L1 Mandarin–L2 English bilinguals were recruited for a lab-based speech production paradigm. English vowel /æ/, which differs acoustically in the vowel height (F1) and vowel backness (F2) from its Mandarin counterpart /e/, was selected as the measure of the phonetic interference. Participants produced stimuli across six contexts: monolingual Mandarin, code-switched Mandarin, pre-switched Mandarin, monolingual English, code-switched English, and pre-switched English. Phonetic awareness was assessed using the Strategies for Pronunciation Improvement (SPI) Inventory (Sardegna et al., 2018). The expected evidence of cross-linguistic interference was not found, and phonetic awareness did not serve to modulate the degree of cross-linguistic interference. The discussion considers whether the lack of convergence in the code-switching context may result from both sociolinguistic and cognitive factors and discusses how this finding can affect the exploration of phonetic awareness in cross-linguistic interference.</p>

Research on clear speech has shown that the type of clear speech produced can vary depending on the speaker, the listener and the medium. Although prior research has suggested that clear speech is more intelligible than conversational speech for normal-hearing listeners in noisy environments, it is not known which acoustic features of clear speech are the most responsible for enhanced intelligibility and comprehension. This thesis focused on investigating the acoustic characteristics that are produced in clear speech to foreigners and infants. Its aim was to assess the utility of these features in enhancing speech intelligibility and comprehension. The results of Experiment 1 showed that native speakers produced exaggerated vowel space in natural interactions with foreign-accented listeners compared to native-accented listeners. Results of Experiment 2 indicated that native speakers exaggerated vowel space and pitch to infants compared to clear read speech. Experiments 3 and 4 focused on speech perception and used transcription and clarity rating tasks. Experiment 3 contained speech directed at foreigners and showed that speech to foreign-accented speakers was rated clearer than speech to native-accented speakers. Experiment 4 contained speech directed at infants and showed that native speakers rated infant-directed speech as clearer than clear read speech. In the fifth and final experiment, naturally elicited clear speech towards foreign-accented interlocutors was used in speech comprehension tasks for native and non-native listeners with varying proficiency of English. It was revealed that speech with expanded vowel space improved listeners’ comprehension of speech in quiet and noise conditions. Results are discussed in terms of the Lindblom’s (1990) theory of Hyper and Hypoarticulation, an influential framework of speech production and perception.

This dissertation is comprised of four studies investigating the hypothesis that adults and children who stutter differ from their same-age fluent peers in the neuroanatomy and neurophysiology underlying auditory speech processing. It has been consistently reported that adults who stutter demonstrate unique functional neural activation patterns during speech production, including reduced auditory activation, relative to nonstutterers. The extent to which these functional differences are accompanied by abnormal morphology of the brain in stutterers is unclear. The first study in this dissertation examined the neuroanatomical differences in speech-related cortex between adults who do and do not stutter using magnetic resonance imaging and voxel-based morphometry analyses. Adults who stutter were found to have localized grey matter volume increases in auditory and motor speech related cortex. The second study extended this line of research to children who stutter, who were found to have localized grey matter volume decreases in motor speech related cortex. Together, these studies suggest an abnormal trajectory of regional grey matter development in motor speech cortex of people who stutter. The last two studies investigated the mechanism underlying the repeated findings of reduced auditory activation during speech in people who stutter in more detail. Magnetoencephalography was used to investigate the hypothesis that people who stutter have increased speech induced suppression of early evoked auditory responses. Adults and children who stutter demonstrated typical levels of speech induced suppression relative to fluent peers. However, adults and children who stutter showed differences from peers in the timing of cortical auditory responses. Taken together, the studies demonstrate structural and functional abnormalities in brain regions related to auditory processing and point to the possibility that people who stutter have difficulty forming the neural representations of speech sounds necessary for fluent speech production.

Recent modeling work shows that patterns of shared perceptual features relate to the group-level order of acquisition of early-learned words (Peters & Borovsky, 2019). Here we present results for two eye-tracked word recognition studies showing patterns of shared perceptual features likewise influence processing of known and novel noun-concepts in individual 24- to 30-month-old toddlers. In the first study (Chapter 2, N=54), we explored the influence of perceptual connectivity on both initial attentional biases to known objects and subsequent label processing. In the second study (Chapter 3, N=49), we investigated whether perceptual connectivity influences patterns of attention during learning opportunities for novel object-features and object-labels, subsequent pre-labeling attentional biases, and object-label learning outcomes. Results across studies revealed four main findings. First, patterns of shared (visual-motion and visual-form and surface) perceptual features do relate to differences in early noun-concept processing at the individual level. Second, such influences are tentatively at play from the outset of novel noun-concept learning. Third, connectivity driven attentional biases to both recently learned and well-known objects follow a similar timecourse and show similar patterns of individual differences. Fourth, initial, pre-labeling attentional biases to objects relate to subsequent label processing, but do not linearly explain effects of connectivity. Finally, we consider whether these findings provide support for shared-feature-guided selective attention to object features as a mechanism underlying early lexico-semantic development.